Summary translation

Our project’s objective has been to develop a comprehensive tool for individual nature conservation plans for organic farms. We call them “Kulturlandplan“ which literally means “plan for a cultural landscape“. The therefore required consultation process accounts particularly for the interests and ideas of the land owner: To improve their implementation on the farm we compose all nature conservation measures in cooperation with the farmer. They include specific issues of conservation as well as farming issues. The whole consultation process and the resulting Kulturlandplan are both encouraging the farmer’s motivation, his awareness and consideration of conservation issues in his daily routine. The farm and the associated fields are described from an ecological point of view, which is mostly new for the farmer. Hence, integrating educational contents into the consultation process improves the farmer’s ecological knowledge and his understanding of the importance of farming-related nature conservation efforts. To increase efficiency in the consultation process and in plan generation we have developed a detailed consultation concept and a set of tools. An evaluation tool assists the consultant in estimating the status quo of benefits for nature and environment on the farm. However, composing the results of the process and describing recommended measures is quite time-consuming. Therefore, we have developed a special computer application. It contains a large set of prepared text modules simplifying the composition of the plan. Moreover, it automatically generates tables and abbreviations and creates the final layout. Our plans and the consultation process itself have been widely accepted by the farmers which gave us a broad positive feedback. One year after the Kulturlandplan has been completed, many measures are already implemented. This shows us that the project and the Kulturlandplan itself, respectively lead to increasing environmental awareness and nature conservation action on organic farms.